WASHINGTON – Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) slammed the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for its continued failure to provide timely information and responses to the Committee’s repeated oversight requests related to the Biden-Harris administration’s botched job numbers fiasco.
In a hastily scheduled call today, BLS told the Committee it shared documents with the Urban Institute and others on a matter the Committee has long been investigating. The Committee has yet to receive the documents it requested from BLS.
Chairwoman Foxx said: “It is evident that BLS is plagued by the same partisan, bureaucratic rot that has become all too commonplace under the Biden-Harris administration. The agency balked at responding to the Committee’s repeated oversight requests about the administration’s botched job numbers release and instead chose to work with cherry-picked government officials and a liberal think tank to produce a lackluster report on BLS’s own terms. Perhaps Vivek, Elon, and DOGE should place BLS under the microscope where it rightfully belongs—the agency has an accountability issue that must be corrected.”
BACKGROUND
In March, news reports revealed a BLS economist shared nonpublic information with several Wall Street firms.
On May 15, BLS accidentally loaded data files to its website 30 minutes prior to the scheduled release time of the consumer price index.
On August 21, while the public waited for the release of the job numbers, some Wall Street firms got a head start as BLS released the numbers to firms that spoke to the agency by phone, potentially giving them an unfair advantage.
On August 26, Chairwoman Foxx and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman Bob Good (R-VA) called out the Biden-Harris administration for exaggerating job growth when revised BLS numbers proved an overestimate of more than 800,000 jobs.
On September 25, to hold BLS accountable for its inability to ensure data is released uniformly and on time, Foxx and Good demanded answers from the Biden-Harris administration.
On October 25, after BLS ignored the congressional request and additional disturbing reports surfaced in the press about BLS actions the day of the job umbers release on August 21, the Committee reupped its oversight inquiry and sent a follow-up letter to BLS.
